AppThwack, founded last year by former Intel employees Trent Peterson and Pawel Wojnarowicz, helps app developers test their technology on a variety of mobile devices. Instead of buying several different versions of an Android phone, for example, a software developer can use AppThwack to test an app on several different varieties to see how it performs on all of them. AppThwack's clients include hobbyists writing code in their basement and big companies such as Symantec.

"In these larger institutions, be they government or larger enterprises, they're developing apps for public consumption, they're developing apps for internal consumption, and they're moving toward maintaining their own internal app stores," Peterson said.